City, NFF go into overtime

-Hall of Fame contract could take another month.

-Hall of Fame contract could take another month.

February 01, 2006|JAMIE LOO Tribune Staff Writer

SOUTH BEND -- The agreement between the College Football Hall of Fame and the city was supposed to be signed Tuesday. But it looks as if another extension is needed. The five-year contract expired at the end of 2005. The city entered an interim agreement to continue its current contract with the National Football Foundation and set a deadline for the end of January to have the new one in place. "Something isn't working right," said Common Council member Derek Dieter, D-1st District. Dieter said council members have not heard news about the contract, and it's a "bad sign" that the new agreement is taking so long. The new goal is to have the contract done by the end of February, said Mikki Dobski, city director of communications and special projects. Dobski said the city and NFF are still having good discussions about their partnership and are working on the details. "They're just fine-tuning the draft," Dobski said. "It's just good due diligence, essentially." Attempts to reach Mayor Stephen Luecke were unsuccessful Tuesday. In a December interview, Luecke said his goal was to reduce the amount of funding the hall receives from the professional sports development fund over a five-year period. He said the 1 percent hotel/motel tax should remain committed to financing the hall. When the Hall of Fame moved to South Bend in 1995, then-mayor (and later Indiana's governor) Joe Kernan said the hall would cost taxpayers nothing. But since its opening, city taxpayers have funneled millions of dollars into the museum's operational expenses, fueling criticism of the museum's presence in South Bend. The Common Council has pushed to slowly decrease city funding to the hall. The council cut operational expenses for the first time in the 2005 budget from $829,000 to $629,000. The council took another chunk from the hall's funding for 2006, bringing it to $600,000. In October, Rick Walls, executive director of the College Football Hall of Fame, gave a glowing report on the hall's progress to the Common Council. Walls took the helm of the museum last April after executive director Bernie Kish left to become a western states regional director for the National Football Foundation.Staff writer Jamie Loo: jloo@sbtinfo.com (574) 235-6337